Annie Duke

Annie Duke ( * September 13, 1965 in Concord, New Hampshire) is an American professional poker player.

Family

Dukes father, Richard Lederer, a writer and linguist who taught at St. Paul 's School. Her brother Howard Lederer is a professional poker player, and her sister Katy Lederer is an author and poet.

Study

Duke went to Columbia University, where she graduated with a degree in English and psychology.

Duke received a membership in the National Science Foundation, through which she was able to study at the University of Pennsylvania Cognitive psychology, particularly psycholinguistics. She wanted to be a professor, but in 1992 she left the university after they had studied for five years. This was a month before she could make her doctorate degree in philosophy. She moved the family life before with her husband Ben Duke and moved to Columbus, a city in Montana with this.

Poker

In Montana, Annie Duke began playing poker cards in salons in Billings. Howard Lederer, her brother, was at that time already a professional player and promoted his sister financially. In 1994, she moved with her husband to Las Vegas so she could dedicate himself entirely to poker. Prior to 2004, they reached 10th in the main event at the World Series of Poker in 2000, while she was in the eighth month of pregnancy with her third child. So they just missed the final table, for which they would have needed at least the 9th Place.

In early 2004 became Duke some celebrity because she trained the actor Ben Affleck, who then 2004 California State Poker Championship won. In September 2004, Duke won two million in the World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions. She sat down as the only woman at the final table, among other things against the then world champion, Greg Raymer and heads-up against Phil Hellmuth Jr. by. She subsequently appeared in the David Letterman Show.

Today, Duke is considered one of the best female poker players. 2004 Duke won a World Series of Poker bracelet in Omaha HiLo and more than 3.1 million dollars in tournaments. You will no longer participate in Women's tournaments because she says that poker is one of the few sports that have exactly the same opportunities as men in women, and thus special Ladies Tournaments are actually unnecessary ( original: " Poker is one of the few sports where a woman can compete on a totally equal footing with a man, so I do not understand why there 's a ladies only tournament. " )

Duke is one of the many poker players who do not like the restrictions during TV tournaments. Although the players must pay an entry fee, do not allow many organizers that the players wear sponsor logos. In April 2005, Duke sparked controversy when she remarked, poker players are not even slaves, but would still need to pay in order to work on plantations may ( original: " We [ poker players ] are not even slaves We're paying people. to pick the cotton. "').

In the World Series of Poker 2004 she defeated her brother Howard Lederer in four different independent events including the aforementioned Tournament of Champions. Unlike him, Duke is known to be very emotional at the table.

By 2013, Duke has won more than 4.2 million U.S. dollars in poker tournaments.

Other Things

Duke has worked since 2000 as a spokesperson for UltimateBet and has written many articles for this online poker website, mainly about Omaha HiLo. She has several nicknames, including " Annie Legend," "The Duke ," and " The Duchess of Poker". Her sister, Katy Lederer wrote the book Poker Face: A Girlhood Among Gamblers about the Lederer family. Duke wrote her own biography, Annie Duke: How I Raised, Folded, bluffed, flirted, Cursed, and Won Millions at The World Series of Poker. This means about Annie Duke: How I raised, fitted, bluffed, flirted, cursed and won millions at the World Series of Poker. She joined on 30 January 2006 as the first athlete in Comedy Central The Colbert Report, where she also talked about her book and how it is to compete as a woman in a male-dominated sport. At the end of the program, the presenter Stephen Colbert celebrated a victory over Duke in a game of five -card draw before she realized that was played with a new, never shuffled deck.

In 2002 she moved to Portland, Oregon, to work for ieLogic. This company produces software for online poker. In 2004, she was divorced from her husband Ben Duke. With their four children, she moved in 2005 to the Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles. Your new home in Mediterranean style and her partner, the actor and producer Joe Reitman were ( German With Annie Duke at home ) are presented in the article in The New York Times At Home With Annie Duke on 19 January 2006.

In 2005, Duke helped her brother Howard Lederer to market a series of poker video games in which both siblings exist as virtual characters.

In 2006, the Game Show Network showed a television special called Annie Duke Takes on the World (in German about Annie Duke takes it with the world on ) in which Annie Duke was shown how they played against various poker amateurs.